Workout Warm Ups

Top 5 Warm Ups To Do Before Hitting It Hard at the Gym

Top 5 Warm Ups To Do Before Hitting It Hard at the Gym

Warming up. Some love it, some hate it.  But eventually everyone realizes how essential it is for an effective workout.  Warming up is essential because your muscles are like rubber bands. The more sedentary your life is, the more time your muscles have to become tight and constricted. If you don’t warm up your muscles before a tough workout, those tight, un-stretched bands get pulled too quickly and eventually snap.

A good warm up should accomplish four things; loosen up, get your blood flowing, stretch out and practice the movements you plan on doing.  If you don’t know whether or not the warm up you have in mind is a good warm up you’re in luck! We’ve compiled a list of the top 5 warm ups we recommend doing before you hit it hard at the gym:

1.  The dynamic warm ups

Created by Nerd Fitness, this warm up is very easy to do and is great no matter what exercise you’re doing that day. The dynamic warm up consists of 2-3 minutes of jump rope, 50 jumping jacks, 20 body squats, 5 lunges each leg, 10 hip extensions, 5 hip rotations, 10 forward and 10 side leg swings, 10-20 pushups and 10 spiderman steps.

2.  The Olympic weight lifter

We found this warm up on Catalyst Athletics.  If you are doing Olympic-style lifting as a part of your training, this warm up is perfect.  Consisting of:

  • Wrist circles: 10 each direction
  • Elbow circles: 10 each direction
  • Arm circles: 10 each direction
  • Bow & bend: 10
  • 1-legged RDL + leg swings: 10 each leg
  • Spiderman lunge: 10 each leg
  • Scorpion: 10 each side
  • Russian Baby Makers: 30 sec hold
  • PVC dislocates: 10
  • PVC overhead squats: 10

 3.  Runners workout

Warm ups for runners vary dramatically depending on what you’re training for and what you’re running on. A solid running warm up should open joints, reinforce posture, dynamically stretch muscles and increase heart rate.

4.  The golfer’s warm up

Yes, you should even warm up for golf! A good golf swing produces a major amount of torque on your hips, knees, shoulders and spine. A bad swing will do much worse. Men’s Health has a great dynamic warm up for any golfer no matter what your handicap.

5.  The Animal Kingdom

Rounding out our list is what we call the Animal Kingdom—it’s named that because every movement is named after an animal.

  • Crab Walk: 2 sets of 15 yards
  • Frog Jumps: 2 sets of 15 yards
  • Duck Walk: 2 sets of 15 yards
  • Bear Crawl: 2 sets of 15 yards
  • Bunny Box Jump: 2 sets of 15 yards
  • Lion’s back stretch: 1 set 12 reps
  • Spider crawl 2 sets of 15 yards
  • Inchworm: 2 sets of 15 yards

 

Warming up is essential to avoid injury! Warming up will allow you to get the most out of every workout. You can do any one of these warm ups to prepare your body for optimal performance. Warm ups are only a third of what makes a good workout. So be sure to bookend your workout with a proper cool down too!